After being honored with the prestigious ICC Men's Cricketer of the Year award, Indian pace spearhead Jasprit Bumrah stressed that the team's success will always remain his top priority. He described India's T20 World Cup triumph as his most treasured moment of 2024.
The ace fast bowler received the Sir Garfield Sobers Award on Tuesday (January 28), following his remarkable exploits across all formats of the game last year.
Bumrah's stellar showing also earned him the ICC Test Cricketer of the Year award, along with a place in the Test Team of the Year.
"I feel really good. As a youngster, I have seen my childhood heroes winning this great award, so yeah, very happy to be at the 'receiving end'," Bumrah told broadcasters.
"So winning the T20 World Cup was really special, and the memories that we made after that are going to be close to me forever," said Bumrah, who played a critical role in India's T20 World Cup win in the Americas, claiming 15 wickets at an astonishing average of 8.26 and an economy of just 4.17.
"So I will always pick us winning the T20 World Cup first."
Jasprit Bumrah became the fifth Indian cricketer to receive the ICC Men's Cricketer of the Year Award. Legendary names like Rahul Dravid (2004), Sachin Tendulkar (2010), Ravichandran Ashwin (2016), and Virat Kohli (2017, 2018) were the previous Indian recipients of this honour.
"It feels really good to get honours from the legends of the game, but I always take things with a pinch of salt," Bumrah said. "I'm very happy with the honour, but I don't let myself get too high. My feet are on the ground, and I'm really happy with the accolades that I get."
Talking about his performance in Test cricket, Bumrah finished 2014 with an impressive tally of 71 wickets in just 13 matches at an average of 14.92, making it the second-best performance by a fast bowler in a calendar year, behind Kapil Dev’s 100 scalps in 1983.
Reflecting on his most memorable moments, Bumrah singled out the dismissal of Ollie Pope during the home Test series against England as particularly special.
"I've been very happy to play a lot of Test cricket this year, and many wickets have been special. But the one that I took against England at Vizag, the Ollie Pope, was really special because that changed the momentum and everything," he remarked.
